This past weekend the members of the Nerd Lunch Podcast and the Cult Film Club podcast descended on Atlanta for a meetup. This was the first time several of us had seen each other in real life. Here are some photos commemorating this historic nerdy and cultish event.

Here we all are. Part 3 of my road trip to Tallhassee to visit my blogging brother Carlin Trammel of Nerd Lunch. After experiencing the religious experience that is the Tallhassee Auto Museum, we decided that while our spiritual selves are full, our physical selves are now empty. What do we do to replenish our famished bodies?

I’ll tell you what we do. We go to KFC and dine like victorious gladiators on Double Downs. Tonight, we dine IN HELL!!! (or a ghetto KFC; 6 of one, half a dozen of another)

You should know, right before this trip, I found out KFC has started offering a 64 ounce (one half gallon) Mega Jug of soda. So, being the bad ass that I am, I decided I needed to drink one. And since I was going to be at KFC anyway I needed to order a Double Down in order to have something the 64 ounces of soda could wash down into my gullet. So Carlin and I swagger into KFC like gunfighters prepared to place our manly orders in very loud voices so everyone would know that some sh*t was about to go down. Maybe they might want to evacuate the women and children.

I cooly glance up at the menu for dramatic effect, and I don’t see either the Double Down or the Mega Jug. What? No Double Down? Holy balls. I am going to have to burn this joint TO THE GROUND. Que Wolverine Berzerker Rage. Right before I start tossing tables and bustin’ skulls, Carlin suggests I just ask if they have it. I struggle to comprehend what Carlin means by his crazy talk. Why would that work? So I ask the lady if they still have the Double Down and Mega Jug soda fully expecting to punch her in the face when she denies me.

She says yes, narrowly escaping the Five Fingers of Doom, heads into the back for like 5 minutes and when she comes back she hands me the biggest cup I’ve ever seen in my life. I pay for my goods and try to put soda into what can only be described as a bucket.

Check this out. The Mega Jug takes up THREE SPOTS on the soda fountain. That would make getting a suicide easier. So, I sit there for about 10 minutes while I fill the bucket up with Diet Pepsi. Then I become concerned because I’m not entirely sure a human bladder is designed to house 64ozs of Diet Pepsi.

Fast food franchises have been around for years. Some of the first ones were started back in the ’50s as malt shops or diners. Since then, there have been many different variations of the fast food franchise; burgers, chicken, ice cream, seafood, family-style, etc. As the type and menu changed, so have the styles, image and logo of the establishment. Many of the most popular fast food franchises of today have been around since the ’60s and if you were to travel back in time to see your favorite restaurant as it stood back in the day, you may not even recognize it.

I was perusing some of the photostreams in Flickr as well as some of my favorite fast food groups and you can see plenty of awesome pictures of fast food franchises and how they used to look back in the day. I even remember some of them! So let’s take a look at a few of the more popular franchises and how their “look and feel” has changed from ’60s until now.

You can click any of the below pictures to see them BIGGER.

McDonald’s

McDonald’s began in 1940 with a restaurant in San Bernandino, CA opened by (surprise, surprise) the McDonald brothers. They developed their “SpeeDee” delivery system in this restaurant that has become the basis for all modern fast food franchises. Ray Kroc, a salesman providing milkshake machines to the brothers, convinced them to let him franchise their operation in 1955. Kroc bought out the brothers and took McDonald’s to the lofty heights you see today. Due to its long history, McD’s architecture has had more face lifts than Joan Rivers. There are so many different styles of McDonald’s restaurants that it’s almost impossible to nail down different eras of buildings. Don’t even get me started on the different styles for the “golden arches” signs as there are too many to even begin a listing here. I could probably do an entire article on McDonald’s architecture and store design (*note to self). Moving along, the picture above is one of the earliest building incarnations from a McDonald’s in the ’50s – ’60s. Many McDonald’s restaurants today are being built in this “retro” styling. Check out the huge, modern, 2-floor McDonald’s in Chicago that was built in this style.

This is probably one of the more familiar versions of the McDonald’s restaurant. It’s brown roof with white striping has become iconic for McDonald’s lovers as it’s visage was used throughout the ’80s in commercials. This style started, I believe, in the ’70s or ’80s. There was also a version of this building with yellow striping on the roof.